The Nation - News from July 13, 1989

Drug dealers used a corrupt New York state agency to register cars that transported at least $25 million in cash and 500 kilos of narcotics across the country, federal prosecutors said as an investigation into the Department of Motor Vehicles widened. Teams of FBI agents and New York City detectives arrested 13 people--including six state DMV employees--and seized more than 150 cars in New York, Los Angeles and Texas in connection with the 20-month investigation. The 25-page indictment filed in Brooklyn federal court details various scams drug dealers and car thieves used to register cars under false names to obtain phony driver’s licenses, with DMV employees allegedly taking payoffs to secure the phony documents.